


there's nothing left but us (and that ain't much)

by summerhall



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, i honestly have no idea what it is. it just happened., post-end of the world, pseudo dystopia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 11:01:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1508102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerhall/pseuds/summerhall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The War comes, and then goes. (And it's only ever just that- The War. Why bother differentiating it from the ones that had come Before when it's the only one that matters?) The few that fought and managed to survive have the hardest mission of all- living in what's left of the world. To help ease the strain, the new government mandates that all Survivors-  the media's unimaginative, but accurate moniker for all former soldiers- attend group therapy sessions three times a week.</p>
<p>Kate doesn't feel the need to bare her soul to room full of strangers that are all as messed up as she is.</p>
<p>Bucky hadn't either, at first. Now he just wants to make it through another day. And maybe get some sleep at night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's nothing left but us (and that ain't much)

**Author's Note:**

> for [buckycaps](http://buckycaps.tumblr.com/) who prompted: "support group au, bucky/kate"
> 
> and then it all went to hell from there.

The War comes quickly, like a bomb. One minute everything is perfect (as perfect as life could ever really be), the next minute nearly all of it is destroyed. Those that are left in the fallout are never the same.

The media calls them Survivors, or the Lucky Ones. Kate remembers Clint laughing the first time he'd heard it, over a busted radio that struggled to play even static. He'd looked around their makeshift base in a collapsing apartment building in what was left of Brooklyn, nodding at the one-eyed dog that had taken up with them ten miles back and grinning at her, "Yeah, we're real fucking Lucky, Katie-Kate."

That _hell_ had been the good ol' days.

The dog made it out. Clint didn't.

Kate Barton stares down at her partner and, very briefly, husband's grave and tries to feel lucky for making it out alive. She tries to feel lucky because all she had lost was everyone, and there were people out there that had lost so much more. She tries to feel real fucking lucky.

She fucking hates the word 'lucky'.

Her phone beeps and she sighs. She taps the headstone in goodbye and looks up through the endless sea of identical gravestones. "Come on, Dog." She calls out. "We're gonna be late."

\--------

Life goes on after The War. It grinds on Bucky's nerves. The Universe didn't even have the decency to know when to give up.

Neither did he, really. It was just another pain in his ass.

His main problem, when you got right to the heart of it, was that he had no idea what the fuck to do now. The War was over, and there was no place for soldiers in peacetime. There was no place for him anywhere. His home had died with his team.

He tries to keep going, though. Even though there are no missions to run, Sharon and Sam aren't here with a smile or a joke or an "I got your back, buddy", Natasha isn't here to punch his arm and call him "dummy" before she kisses him, and Steve isn't here to-

Steve isn't here. So what else has he got to do but survive, anyway?

\--------

It's mandatory for all Survivors that had been active duty to attend group therapy three times a week. Kate burns through four in her first six weeks. The next two she stays with a little longer, toys around with them just for the hell of it, before getting kicked out. She can imagine Clint's proud smirk as he says "Atta girl, Hawkeye."

She has nothing against support groups. She actually thinks they can be helpful, at least to people that can be helped by something like that. Kate just doesn't think she's one of those people. She just can't find it in her to take them seriously. (But she has a hard time taking anything seriously anymore. Clint's laughing voice is in her head far too much for that.)

Her latest one looks to be half-way interesting though, just for the sheer number of people already gathered in the makeshift circle that look like they'd rather be literally anywhere but here. The guy in the back in the black hoodie that flinches at the light looks particularly fucked up. Kate takes the empty seat next to him, instead of directly across, so she won't have to look him in the eye if he shares.

The Dog lies down at her feet.

\--------

All it takes is one look at the new woman in the group, and Bucky can tell that she's lost more than she has left.

_Welcome to the club_ , he thinks, and sits down across from her.

\--------

Lt. Katherine B. Barton, call sign "Hawkeye", of the 25th "Avengers" Squadron does not share her experiences during The War with the support group. Instead she listens to the prematurely gray-haired man break down at the mention of his sister, ignores the stares of the man with the metal prosthetic, and watches as the ginger woman tries to hide her too-red eyes and her hands, shaking with the first stages of detox, from view.

After it's over, the moderator nods warmly at her but doesn't attempt to speak, just like he hadn't introduced her or asked her to share during the session. It's enough to make her decide to come back.

\--------

When the new government enacted the Survivor's therapy mandate shortly after The War ended, Bucky had ignored it. He'd scoffed at the media announcements and thrown the letters in the garbage with a resounding " _fuck that_ ". What made them think he would want to go tell a room full of strangers why he couldn't sleep at night?

He'd gotten away with avoiding it for nearly two months before uniformed officers broke down his door and forcibly dragged him to the nearest group meeting, threatening prison and worse. He'd nearly taken them up on their offer of _worse_ (because really, what could possibly be worse than what he'd already seen?) but, well, trying to survive and all that.

Surviving didn't mean _s haring_, though. So he didn't. Not for nearly a month. It'd taken him that long to realize that, while they were all sitting inside that circle, he could trust those people. After all, every one of them was just as fucked up as he was. 

He even started to like some of them, after a while. Tyrone was quiet, but articulate when he shared. Pietro and Patsy were a damn mess, but both had a snarky wit that could have rivaled Steve's on their good days. Murdock was the only one he'd met during The War- hell, he'd dated Natasha Before- and was also the only one Bucky actually spoke to outside of group. (If you count shopping at the same grocery and exchanging terse greetings- "Barnes." " _Murdock_."- as speaking.) And Peter, the moderator, was the worst one of them all. He'd had the shittiest life Bucky had ever heard of, yet still manage to stay sane, and help others stay that way too. 

Peter couldn't help everyone, though. Bucky had seen countless people show up to one or two meetings, then never come back. Some people just couldn't be helped. Some people didn't _want_ to be helped. (He'd know- he used to be one of them.) He thinks the brunette with the dog might be one of them too. 

So when he sees her lingering outside the door before what could be her third meeting, he stops on the sidewalk and watches. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, muttering under her breath, maybe to the dog, maybe to herself. She stills suddenly, and takes a deep breath, before yanking open the door and striding inside. 

Bucky almost smiles. 

\-------- 

The Dog takes a liking to the man with the metal prosthetic. So much so that, five meetings in, he decides to lie under his chair instead of her's. 

Kate spends most of the meeting trying to decide if that bothers her or not. 

She shares for the first time that day. 

She talks about enlisting, even though her family was rich enough that they could have made it by after the economy collapsed. She talks about her unit and how young they all had been and how none of the other units expected them to amount to much more than cannon fodder. She talks about the mission to Latveria and how fast everything became FUBAR. How fast her team died. 

She talks about getting reassigned and meeting Clint. And then she stops, because that's way too much fucking talking for one day. 

Kate walks out then and doesn't bother to look back to see if the Dog follows. (He does.) 

\-------- 

Maj. James "Bucky" Barnes, call sign "Winter Soldier", of the 107th "Invaders" Squad dreams in black and white, like some of the old film reels from the old wars that had come Before, the ones no one ever talks about anymore. At least, the good dreams ( _normal_ dreams, more like it, since none of them are ever really _good_ ) are in black and white. The others are in shades of red. 

_ (Red hair, red blood, red star on the metal arm they'd given him when he fell behind enemy lines-)  _

He can feel those dreams coming sometimes, if he's lucky. He'll keep himself awake on those nights, either exercising until he's too exhausted to dream or simply lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, listening to the droning of the television in the background and letting his mind wander and never shut off. 

His mind wanders a lot to the woman in his therapy group. 

\-------- 

Kate skips the next meeting. 

Bucky wonders why he's disappointed. 

\-------- 

The next week, he's standing outside, lighting up a cigarette in the snow and killing the ten minutes before the meeting starts when she walks up, her ever constant companion trailing happily along beside her. "Bum a cigarette?" She asks. 

He extends the packet and waits until she's placed it between her lips to light it up for her. She exhales, stirring the falling snowflakes in the air. The dog goes ahead inside without her. 

"Who'd you serve with?" She asks, after a while. 

"107th." 

"Invaders Squad." She's clearly impressed. He smirks. "Used to hear stories about you guys." 

He's not surprised. His team had been the best covert ops unit there was, and people love to talk about the best. Still, Bucky bets most of the stories she'd heard about them were _true_. 

"What about you?" He asks, tossing his cigarette butt into a snow pile near the street. "Who were you with?" 

She takes one last drag then flicks her butt away, too. "I was commanding officer of the 25th Avengers for most of The War. Finished out the last year or so on a two-man STRIKE team." He nods even though he'd heard her say this in the session less than a week ago. She sticks out a hand. "Kate Barton." 

There's an odd pause between names, and she catches him staring as they shake hands. "Sorry. I...got married, not that long ago. I'm still not that used to it." 

Bucky shrugs. "We're in the leftovers of the world, Mrs. Barton. You could get your husband to change his name. Who'd give a fuck anymore?" 

Kate thinks about it for a moment, and she smiles as if she's trying to laugh. "You know, he just might have, if he'd survived." 

"Aw, shit. I'm sorry-" 

She waves him off. He stands there awkwardly, even shuffling his feet a little in the snow before he catches himself. When he looks back up, she's staring out at the street with a distant smile on her face that makes him wonder if maybe he hadn't made a complete ass of himself after all. She nods her head towards the building and he follows her up the sidewalk. 

"I'm Bucky Barnes, by the way." He says, reaching out to hold the door for her. 

She smiles at him again, this time not so sadly, and he can't help but grin back. "It's nice to meet you, Bucky." 

He doesn't realize until later that it was the first time he's smiled in months. 

\-------- 

There's no such thing as good coffee anymore, but the pot brewed at group is about as decent as you can get. More often than not, Kate comes early and "meets" Bucky there, at the coffee table in the back that might have held donuts and pamphlets Before. She'll rest her hips against the table and he'll lean against the wall and they'll talk about The War, or who they were Before, or a million other little things. He's funny, when he lets himself be, but haunted, mostly. She thinks he'd say the same about her. They talk _around_ things a lot- his team, her team, her husband, his arm- but it's still the best conversation Kate's had, outside of her head, in a long time. 

When he shares, he'll look at her. He'll tell the group about how he still wakes up sometimes thinking of something he needs to tell his best friend, or how he plays the radio or the tv constantly just to keep the silence away, because his team was never that quiet, or how, on occasion, he'll look down and is surprised when one arm is different than the other. 

He looks at her through all of it. And despite being surrounded by a dozen other people, it's...intimate. 

It's unnerving. 

\-------- 

When Kate dreams it's always of Clint. Her team is there too a lot of the time, but _always_ there is Clint. 

_ (Laughing and saying "Fuck regulation dress code" as he pulls a purple shirt over his head he'd stolen from a bombed store and then tossing her one too. Winking at her in the dark as they sat on a roof, scoping out a target for the second night in a row. Smiling into their first kiss, his hands running along her back and bumping into her quiver. Yelling "Marry me, Hawkeye!" over the sounds of gunfire and dropping bombs, grinning stupidly at her with bloodied teeth after she'd said yes.)  _

She misses that cocky son of a bitch so much she can't _breathe_. 

So the first night Kate dreams of Bucky, she wakes up screaming. She falls out of bed, ignoring the Dog barking in surprise, and stumbles towards the closet to pull one of his shirts down from the rack she'd hung it on, even though he'd been dead for weeks when she bought the apartment. Kate presses the fabric to her nose and inhales, hoping for _something_ \- some lingering trace of him. 

There isn't any. 

Kate slides down the wall to the closet floor and cries. The Dog lies his head on her lap and whines until she wraps her arms around him. She holds their dog and his shirt and cries until she passes out. 

(Just before she falls back asleep, she thinks she can hear him. _Stop freaking out, Shake-and-Kate. I'm not going anywhere._

_But you already have_. She thinks, and closes her eyes.) 

\-------- 

Days later, after she's cried herself out, Kate doesn't hang Clint's shirt back up in her closet. She places it, along with his other clothes, in cardboard boxes and takes them to the shelter down the street. 

(The whole way down there, she debates keeping the purple shirt after all, but decides against it at the last minute. She has his bow and his name, and that's all she needs.) 

It's on the walk back home that she finally realizes that it wasn't just that she _hadn't_ dreamed about Clint, but that she _had_ dreamed about _Bucky_. 

\--------

It's another two weeks- two weeks of agonizing over it in her mind, about whether it's a good idea, whether she's ready, whether or not she's a bad person for even _thinking_ about it, about someone else- before Kate works up the nerve to approach him. 

He's lingering by the coffee machine, waiting for her, when she shows up a good ten minutes before therapy starts. She takes her time throwing her jacket over the back of a chair, and, for the first time, allows herself to _really_ look at him. He's pulled his hair back today, with a few strands coming loose from the short ponytail and falling over his forehead. The heat inside the building's finally been fixed, so he's pushed up the sleeves of his black sweater to his elbows. The flickering  florescent lights overhead reflect off his metal arm as he props himself against the wall and shoves his free hand in his pockets. He looks up, catches her staring, and smiles, lifting his coffee cup in greeting. 

Damned if her heart doesn't start to race. 

As she gathers the last bits of her courage, a nasty little voice suddenly snarls in her head _you were never this nervous with Clint_. Kate ignores it.

It had taken her a long time to figure it out, but she knew now that nothing was ever going to be as easy as it was with Clint. But that didn't mean that something new with someone new couldn't still be _good_. 

Bucky wasn't Clint. _And that was okay_. 

The thought removes the last weights of doubt from her shoulders. Walking towards him, Kate takes a deep breath, and smiles.


End file.
